Niantic Bay 1/2 Marathon

Today was the Niantic Bay 1/2 Marathon and 5K - what a splendid day for a race. The entire TL family drove up to Niantic where my sister has a beach house. Both of my sisters ran in the 5K, as did Mrs. Torn Ligaments, and yes my little hombre ran his second official road race in as many weeks.

It has just over 1,000 runners combined for both events - last year I did the 5K, my first, which sparked a fire within me - and it's been burning ever since. I set a pre-race goal of 1:40, which as I mentioned, was extremely aggressive - 7:40 min miles - but I wanted to push and see if I could do it. The course was essentially two big loops that begin in Rocky Neck State Park and then go through a seaside residential neighborhood, that reminds me a little bit of Marblehead.

I wore my Ironman watch which does track mile splits, though in the heat of the race I missed a few mile markers. I need a Garmin so it tracks automatically, but I digress.

Mile 1 I cranked in 6:47, felt light and balanced, but knew I had to dial it back a bit. Mile 2, my split was 9:00 exactly. Just awful. So I picked it up again, and Mile 3 split was 7:46 - more like it. Mile 4 7:53, Mile 5 7:54, Mile 6 6:29 (my fastest of the race). Apparently in my euphoria/delirium after turning out a scorcher I missed the next mile marker, and didn't get back on track until I saw the Mile 8 sign and staring keeping tabs again:
Mile 9 7:41
Mile 10 8:33
Mile 11 7:23
Mile 12 7:56
Mile 13 ? (I didn't press the button) to finish in 1:44:00.

My last mile I pushed hard, and after realizing 1:40 wouldn't happen, then besting 1:45 became the goal, and beat that by a minute.

144 35/75 M3039 1:44:14 David Costantini 39 M 375 Kittery ME 1:44:00 7:56

So 7:56 min miles, not bad. The real test will be if I can run 8:00 min miles next Sunday for the Maine Marathon in Portland, which includes a fair amount of hills.

I want to beat my Sugarloaf time of 3:39:19, and the rest is gravy.